This hand was in a 9max SnG which I played yesterday. Looking back at it I think I took too big of a risk in my betting once the two Ks were dealt on the board. Can anybody tell me what they think I should of done better with this hand?
Thanks,
Nick
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/552313509/full-house-kings-full-of-threes
There wasn’t all that much risk involved, since you had an amazing hand, and if you’re beat in that spot, you can’t really do much about it. The main mistake is that you bet too aggressively with your good hand, so it’s hard to get value from it, although in this case it worked out
Preflop is good.
On the flop, you should bet smaller, don’t pot it. By potting, the only hands that call you are pocket pairs and Kx and 3x. However, by betting 1/3, you can get calls from a ton more hands, such as Ax and possible Qx. Then, on the future streets, you can bet bigger to get more value from the pairs.
Another reason that you shouldn’t pot it is that you don’t want to pot it with your bluffs there. If your opponent catches on, they’ll realize that you only pot it there with your value hands. However, if you bet smaller, you can do so with both your bluffs AND your value hands, which makes it harder for your opponent to make a decision.
The turn shove is also not great, because you basically have the nuts, and want the opponent to possibly hit a pair on the river. A better decision would be to check or bet small on the turn, and then shove the river. That way, you give your opponent the opportunity to improve their hand and call you on the river. The hands that call you on the turn shove will call on the river, but now there are even more hands that you get value from that improved on the river. One last benefit is that you look more suspicious by checking the turn, which will make your opponent call lighter.
Optimal line imo: bet 400(1/3) on flop, 700(~1/3) on turn, 3700(pot sized shove) on river.
Would love to hear other ideas as well!
– No –
Good advice, especially regarding my huge bet on the turn.
Nick
In my humble opinion … u should have NEVER bet the flop … u are shorter stack playing heads up there r only 3 possible hands that have u beat on flop 33 AK KQ … since opponent did not reraise pre flop he has none of those hands (you r playing heads up) maybe 33 but that’s still heads up ANY pocket pair is powerful … U want to get the MAX out of your hand ( U did only because u got lucky and the replay gods stuck it to other player lol) … u check and let them bet if they do call … hope turn improves his hand same with river where u could check again hoping for bluff or slam it and hope they think ur bluffin them and call u … just my 2 cents … and what do I know … Good luck on tables … Take Care Goat
Considering this is a heads up showdown after the flop is a check/call…after turn is a bit smaller bet than you had and a full shove on the river. u wanna look weak post flop with your trips and give him the opportunity to semi-bluff/bluff, then u call his bluff/bet but dont re-raise there… to still look somewhat weak. If that 3 didnt flop for him then he snap folds anyway Your biggest mistake was not checking the flop. His biggest mistake was calling any of your bets chasing a low boat that he will lose to anyway and having bottom 2 pair at best. It wont always work out that easy the way you played it as far as getting value. He only kept betting because it was heads up thinking you are repping trip Ks and he had a pair to back your high card up. To me im not calling my whole stack on 3s at showdown when you both are somewhat evenly stacked just to get 2nd place, You didnt play it well but he played it much worse. He woulda been better off re-raising u all in post flop with his 2 pairs hoping u were bluffing trip Ks or maybe having an Ace high card at best( raking in the pot after u fold ) the odds of winning the hand that way for him were better than taking those 3s to the river. Glad it worked out tho. Cheers
I agree, checking here gets the max value from this hand.
However, betting small get the max value for his whole RANGE since he’ll make money with his bluffs by betting here as well.
Playing oop sucks, you could shove pre flop, he should be calling with a lot of worse hands that you dominate. If he’s not calling with them then you could start shoving wider oop. As played I like a little bigger pre like 2.5x due to the fact he limped in, never folding if he shoves.
OTF… This is literally the kind of flop we’re looking for and we should be 100% range betting for .25-.33 psb. There is no need to go higher at this spr if he has anything we’ll have no trouble gii by the river. We don’t really benefit by narrowing his range on this flop and we want to keep him wide to hopefully catch a pair or call down with A high. EDIT: “the kind of flop we’re looking for” with our entire range as John points out… not just because we have a K, yeah that’s nice but we won’t usually. It’s just that this flop has a hard time hitting V so we can take it down a ton with 100% range bet for a small price.
OTT… he either has a hand he’s calling or he doesn’t. I don’t mind the shove here as long as you have enough bluffs but prefer to x as played with a psb to hopefully induce bluffs or allow him to catch up again.
None of what you did is terrible, you just don’t need to pot flop and turn to get it in so it’s okay to give V a little rope.
I like this.
I humbly disagree… what is H doing with 87s, or 66? If he’s not betting this for value at an SPR of 4 then what is he betting and how’s he getting it in for the full double. These guys playing in these 9 handed SnG’s aren’t bluffing enough and when we’re oop we can’t just x and allow V to catch when we have no showdown value and we certainly don’t want him x/b when we have the top of our range.
Calling down with a 3 here is not a mistake on V’s part… if he folded (even to this psb) that would be a huge mistake on his part. V’s mistake was limping pre and then calling the raise pre. He could have open to 2.2x or just flat out shoved with Q high pre but post flop there is nothing he could do but call down.
I don’t like this either, sorry. Why would we shove on the flop with a 3 here. You want to get value from H’s bluffs as V. This flop is too dry and you can’t expect to get called very often by hands that we beat. We should allow H to bluff the turn again and if x to shove the turn for protection/value.
The english language is dead.
@dayman , what is :
OOP, OTF, GII, SPR, OTT, PSB, and X/B ? 
OMG, lol, hwg … ikr. 
I understand on say, a flip phone, it saves time… but the people you are trying to teach something to, prolly don’t know all the terms or remember them all.
Sassy
Hahaha I think he’s used to typing those abbreviations to make his notes shorter in game
OOP: Out of position
OTF: On the flop
GII: Get it in(?)
SPR: Stack to pot ratio
OTT: On the turn
PSB: Pot-sized bet
X/B: Check or bet(?)
Damn, I had almost EXACTLY the same thought process.
I initially also considered shoving pre, and that’s definitely a +EV play w/ 18bb. However, in this sort of tournament on this site, I believe that it’s more +EV to play postflop with KJo, since people will be calling shoves MUCH tighter than they should be(generally true when it’s HU for 1st), which means less EV for your valueshoving hands and more EV for your weaker shoving hands. Also more streets = more possibilities for opponents to make mistakes
I ALSO thought about raising bigger pre lol but I didn’t mention it since I think generally it’s standard to raise 2x in HU. It really depends on the exact HU situation and how wide each player is opening/calling, so I wasn’t sure what size would be best in this case.
I had almost exactly the same thoughts postflop as well, with one minor difference: I don’t think we should 100% range bet on that flop, since both of our ranges are supposed to be extremely wide, so our opponent will have a lot of Kx as well, just not the best ones. We definitely have the range advantage and should cbet often, although if we do it too much it’s exploitable by bluff raises(although I have to admit that people rarely do that on this site)
It’s crazy how similar our thinking was on all streets!
check back… meant to be xb not x/b. Maybe x back is better. Thanks @john456852.
Yeah definitely, I did misread the HH (hand history) and had it in my mind they were 15 bb effective. I do agree overall though, Replay population isn’t calling correctly.
I like bigger than 2x as it magnifies the mistakes our opponents are making and we win bigger pots post flop. I would adjust to 2x if V was calling way too tight and expand my bb range a bit. In this case V has already put in half a bb so I like the little extra fold equity we get from sizing up. I also agree that our ranges are both very wide. This is the reason we should 100% range bet. If v is as wide as defending 54%, which really is fairly tight for HU IP, then when we bet 400 into 1200 our BE% is 25% so he needs to defend a minimum of 75%. So on this board he has to defend A2o K9o 87o and everything suited that has a back door flush draw. He’s folding way more than 25% so we print with this 1/3 psb on the flop. My thoughts anyway. I know nothing though and am just trying to learn as much as fast as I can. Cheers! 
Thanks @Sassy_Sarah for calling this out. Hopefully anyone in these forums who are really trying to learn will ask questions when they don’t understand something or see terminology that is not familiar to them. I forget sometimes that some of the forum contributors haven’t been around this kind of poker discussion before. John pretty much covered them in his reply.
I tried to tell u that a long time ago dayman lol, about the terms u use. I know u play rings mostly but i played prob more sit n go games and winning showdowns in sit n gos and winning 1st place on the monthly boards in sit n gos for years here. i specialized in sit n gos for years dominating the boards and yes i play rings and MTT too ( got burnt out on so many sit n go games so dont play them much anymore ), point is that u cant talk about hands u play in rings ( even heads up ) as being the same as how you play the hand in any sit n go hand or showdown (Just the increasing blinds alone from start to finish and needing to eat those high blinds whenever/as much as you can changes everything comparing it to how you play a ring hand ) constant increasing of blinds and decreasing of players in the tourney, etc, etc, too many things to list .EVERYTHING changes with the same hands. NOTHING about the same hand is the same in rings as in a sit n go game as far as how u dissect and play each hand ( there are way too many variables in there that rings dont have. period. ) the whole psychology of every play changes even. Until u play and dominate those games u wont understand or grasp what im saying so once again its apples to oranges with u because u come in with your Ring hat on ( no disrespect at all ) saying what to do at any given point in a sit n go hand or MTT hand. They are a diff breed than a MTT too if u wanna get into specifics, but its the same for tourney players coming here and talking about a typical ring hand with you but they have their tourney thinking cap on. Every aspect of poker and the hand changes from beginning to end of each sit n go or MTT as far as how you play them. In all due respect i agree with Sassy on that but already mentioned it before suggesting that. If everyone could mention if its rings,sit n gos or MTT when they talk about a hand then it would be very helpful for the people responding. Also if people responding would respond in a ring, sit n go, or MTT mind set/fashion depending on each specific hand analyzed then that would be great too because this is all poker but each type of game has much different strategies. Thats what makes poker so great and fun. Cheers
I think you’re right about the preflop sizing, I forgot that we were the big blind since usually the sb is OOP lol.
After the opponent limps i think 2.0 has 0% fold equity on this site, and 2.5 might give you a tad bit more fold equity so it’s definitely better.
About the 100% range bet, I think you’re right that in these situations people generally don’t defend as much as they should, but imo it’s not a good habit to get into since some opponents will defend properly and put you in tough spots.
I’d actually go closer to 3x preflop. Because we could conceivably check our option, when we have a fairly strong yet vulnerable hand like KJs, opening to 3x gives us some fold equity when the button has already completed (and would probably always therefore at least call a min-open).
On the flop, agreed with what others have said regarding downbetting. I like a size around 20%-25% pot with your entire open range. It’s going to be really tough for the button to defend with appropriate frequency, and if you have this play with your full range, you might be able to get a lot of folds from better hands. This is another reason to go larger preflop - a 20% size isn’t possible when there are only 4BB in the middle.
Once V calls on the flop, I kinda like a check on the turn. Give V a chance to bluff at the pot, or try to get value with his 3’s, medium pocket pairs, or an ace and hang himself. In any case, there’s no sense in leaving just 10 chips behind; just get it all in.
One last thought - whenever you bet for value, ask yourself what hands you’d use as a bluff in that spot. With a pot-sized turn bet, you should have half as many bluffs as you do value hands. What would a reasonable bluff range look like? Just AdXd? If that isn’t enough to balance out all of the kings that you’d play like this, what other bluffs do you mix into your range?
@floridajetski no offense and I certainly mean no disrespect to what you’re saying but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I know, understand and have put in a good amount of study on MTT’s. None on SnG’s but it’s my belief that they play somewhat like a FT or single table satellite. When I reply or comment on a post I do so with regard to the setting. In an MTT or SnG where there is no ICM consideration the only things that should be considered are the exact same as in a ring game. Your range, V’s range how those ranges interact with the board, effective stack sizes, position and any info specific to V that influences how he/she plays the hand/range/spot. So when I commented on this post I was commenting on the post as played with the players involved. Doesn’t matter if this is SnG, MTT or ring game at this point. All that matters is that they’re HU playing for a predetermined amount of chips with 18 bb effective stacks and how their ranges interact with each other and the board. When I give input in the forums it is always in the context of not only how to win at poker on Replay but also in low stakes cash games and tournaments that I imagine anyone here trying to improve either already plays for $'s in a casino or at least wants to. I appreciate that you’ve been able to exploitatively crush these SnG’s and I’m sure MTT’s and ring games as well. The strategy you offer though imo is only going to be good enough to beat free poker. If their are individual players who are only concerned with beating Replay then I would absolutely recommend they follow all of your advice to the letter. Again, I truly mean no disrespect, I just don’t agree with about 90% of the strategy advice you give.
Thats great you feel that way, I think its more of the fact that you are not willing to learn 90% of my game or any ones because you are too set in your ways on how you play. I also dont agree with what you say many times but im still open to listen on other aspects of the game that i could use improvement on that maybe i dont utilize enough. Not many players can master every aspect of the game, if any at all. When you say the only things that should be considered In a sit n go or MTT are those same things, well i disagree 100% meaning the things u mentioned are the same but there are many more in tourneys. You mentioned relative stack sizes being the same to consider for both, well ok but relative stack sizes are fluctuating much more ( constantly ) to a higher degree and with many more players. It is similar to chess as far as needing to think 5 or 6 moves ahead but at the same time play your hand now. You just dont have that factor come into play in rings because the players on the table are not changing constantly, your not getting re balanced to a new table ( both those things alone make for a constant awareness of new reads on players coming to your table, or you being bumped to another table) Also players arent constantly decreasing by the minute/.minutes, you have to always know where you are in the tourney along with many other factors. So when u mention the only things that should be considered are the exact same things in rings your 100% wrong because they have to be factored in and looked at differently… just those things alone such as stack sizes u mention for example. Stack sizes in tourneys from all the players left along with the increasing blinds alone changes how you factor stack sizes into your play at any given time in a tourney. Its just not the same on a ring table because all those factors i mentioned are constantly changing. Your goal is to be the last one standing in a tourney and everyone else is knocked out in order to win, Tell me how those same considered factors u say take place in both are not different sitting on a ring table with unlimited re buys? And all a sit n go is a MTT with same starting stacks and lowest increasing blinds when the game starts. Same factors to consider as far as last one standing. I know the math of poker well but have other factors more important in my game but still use it, u have to but u cant win on math alone…however if u master other traits in your game then other players can win with minimal math. As far as live cash games, been there done that and at higher stakes than u mentioned.and for more years than you know, so dont assume anyone on here has never played more than low stakes cash games and just beat players on replay. I mentioned it before that ive seen some very bad players in many diff live tables in nice large casinos on medium/high stakes There are many intelligent successful people on those tables that are just recreational players and not that skilled. You see trying to survive and pay their bills to millionaires (and every type in between sitting at the same tables sometimes More players than not on low stakes get wiped out playing over their heads and b rolls there just like here. Live is overrated as far as skill untill you get into the high stakes tables. Also dont assume that just because odds isnt as important in your game that the player doesnt know odds or math extremely well, its just because they have better tactics they use more that work for them, but yes they all are important and being open minded in poker always allows room for improvement knowing that everyone plays a different style that sometimes you can learn from making it a fun competitive game no matter where u play.or for how much, Cheers
Well said. Yes you should have an overall strategy plan for how you approach different games and adjust accordingly from there to specific table/game dynamics. The thing is the OP started this post with two words… “This hand” which is what I am analyzing from my perspective. It does not matter in the context of this HH whether player x had 40 bb an hour ago or might have 100 bb an hour from now. What matters are ICM to which there are none to consider because they’re HU, range vs range and effective stacks. +1 to your description of live games. I’ve preaching this to the “Replay is fixed crowd” forever. I see the same dumb stupid plays in casinos for $ all the time. Cheers man.
Repost from other one:
1 small thing that might bring some more clarity to this since no one has mentioned it yet:
By definition, optimal GTO play(the mathematical approach) achieves a Nash Equilibrium. If both players play absolutely mathematically perfectly using math, the net EV will be 0, since poker is a zero-sum game.
Here’s the important part. Achieving Nash Equilibrium means that if the opponent plays optimally, they will achieve the maximum EV. HOWEVER: If they deviate from it in any shape or form, they will lose out on EV and lose against the perfect GTO player.
By only using perfect math(although that’s obviously impossible for humans), it means that you will win a lot of chips by definition.
There are proofs online of these facts, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to explain that; I just know that these are true.